|
That the Soul of every individual is one thing we deduce from
the fact that it is present entire at every point of the body-
the sign of veritable unity- not some part of it here and another
part there. In all sensitive beings the sensitive soul is an
omnipresent unity, and so in the forms of vegetal life the
vegetal soul is entire at each several point throughout the
organism.
Now are we to hold similarly that your soul and mine and all are
one, and that the same thing is true of the universe, the soul in
all the several forms of life being one soul, not parcelled out
in separate items, but an omnipresent identity?
If the soul in me is a unity, why need that in the universe be
otherwise seeing that there is no longer any question of bulk or
body? And if that, too, is one soul and yours, and mine, belongs
to it, then yours and mine must also be one: and if, again, the
soul of the universe and mine depend from one soul, once more all
must be one.
What then in itself is this one soul?
First we must assure ourselves of the possibility of all souls
being one as that of any given individual is.
It must, no doubt, seem strange that my soul and that of any and
everybody else should be one thing only: it might mean my
feelings being felt by someone else, my goodness another's too,
my desire, his desire, all our experience shared with each other
and with the (one-souled) universe, so that the very universe
itself would feel whatever I felt.
Besides how are we to reconcile this unity with the distinction
of reasoning soul and unreasoning, animal soul and vegetal?
Yet if we reject that unity, the universe itself ceases to be one
thing and souls can no longer be included under any one
principle.
|
|